


Dancing in a Snow Globe

by thelonelyvalise



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, Fluff, Multi, and adam has a nice time, it's a gangsey christmas party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelonelyvalise/pseuds/thelonelyvalise
Summary: Adam Parrish had never liked Christmas. (But this one's really nice.)





	Dancing in a Snow Globe

**Author's Note:**

> ***This takes place in-between the last chapter of TRK and the epilogue. Minor spoilers for the Call Down the Hawk teaser. I just wanted Adam to have a nice Christmas. Hope you like it!***

Adam Parrish had never liked Christmas. Winter vacations of his past were filled with cold that sank through his threadbare layers, too few excuses to leave his family’s cramped double-wide, and the familiar pit in his stomach where a school-provided hot lunch should have been. He’d seen the movies, of course. The myth of a white Christmas with a charming catalogue-perfect family smiling around a fresh-cut pine.

He used to ride his bike along the frost-bitten road to the neighborhoods where he could watch the seasons change through colorful lawn decorations. He would peer through the windows and catch tableaux of what he was missing, turning away only when it started to hurt. _Someday_. Someday, he would find that. He would build a life for himself that he could unwrap from the box and display on the shelf like a snow globe.

It felt impossible, sitting on the couch at The Barns with a dream-pine basking in the corner and his best friends filling the room with laughter. But the mug of coffee in his hand was warm. The air smelled like gingerbread and peppermint. Ronan’s leg casually rested across his lap. He was awake. What a strange, charmed life.

A candy cane poked Adam in the shoulder. Ronan repeated, “Parrish, you ready for presents?”

“Sure.”

It was Blue’s idea. One late November night at Monmouth, a brain-rotting amount of calculus homework in, she’d asked, “Would you all want to do something for Christmas?”

“What a brilliant idea, Jane!”

“It’s not like I’ve got plans, unless you count a god-fucking-forsaken mass that couldn’t even keep Jesus awake.”

A knot twisted in Adam’s stomach. But after strict negotiation that _no more than $10_ would be spent per-person, many serious looks Gansey’s way, and Blue’s quiet proposal that she could help him make presents for the other boys, Adam acquiesced.

Once again, winter break was unkind to Adam. All his college applications had been sent. Priority financial aid forms submitted with dotted i’s and fingers crossed. But he wouldn’t hear back from anywhere until after the holidays. He was left to wait, and hope, and dread. Ronan kept him busy in the hollow where his Aglionby work would have been to distract him. It was Ronan’s first winter back at The Barns and he was trying his best to make it _feel right_.

“Fuck if I know. I _think_ she kept them up here. Keep looking.”

Adam had no intention to stop looking. He was entranced by the sacred museum of the Lynch family’s attic. He dusted off a child-sized rocking horse. It whinnied under his touch. He wondered if he would ever get used to the whimsy of sweet dream-things, if the awe would ever fade. He hoped not.

“Ah, here they are! Shit, there’s more than I remembered.”

Adam turned to the boxes Ronan found; Aurora’s hoard of Christmas decorations. It would put the dragons of yore to shame. The boys took turns unloading them down the creaky ladder.

As Ronan reached up to close the attic door, Adam noticed a smudge of dust across his face. Before Ronan could pick up a box and head downstairs, Adam caught his arm.

“Hold up, you’ve got a…” He grazed his thumb over Ronan’s forehead, wiping the dirt clear.

Ronan flushed under his touch. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Adam casually flicked the dust off his hand. “I know. But I could. And I figured for how much I joke about you being a shithead, I don’t want to mean it _literally_…”

“Asshole,” Ronan said through a smile.

Adam pulled that smile towards his own.

Would the awe of kissing Ronan Lynch ever fade? Adam hoped not.

The Christmas lights he and Ronan excavated from the attic wrapped around the tree and embraced the four friends with their soft glow. The smattering of gifts waited patiently on the plaid tree skirt. Opal and Chainsaw fought over a strand of tinsel in the corner. Gansey topped off everyone’s hot chocolate and they settled in.

Adam caught himself wringing his hands. He concentrated on relaxing them finger by finger, knuckle by knuckle. Blue grabbed his hands in hers. She looked him in the eyes. _Don’t be nervous_, her stare said. _They’re going to love it_.

Gansey clapped his hands together, regal and self-assured as always. “Who wants to pick first? Adam, Jane?”

“You can go,” Adam nodded to Blue.

She pulled Gansey’s gift bag out from under the tree.

Adam tried not to show his relief.

She pulled off the tissue paper and gasped. Gansey bit his lip. Blue unfurled a wisp of a seedling from the bag and brought it to her nose. She breathed in the fresh mint scent.

“I borrowed a book from the library on how to propagate herbs,” Gansey asserted.

Ronan scoffed. “Jesus, Gansey, we have the internet.”

Blue’s mouth dropped open. “You _grew_ this?”

He nodded. “Do you like it?” Adam logged the chink in his confident armor.

Blue leaned up to Gansey’s eye-level. “I love it.” She kissed him on the cheek. Gansey blushed. “Thank you.”

They all had the night Gansey died branded into their memories. But after a strategically-placed test on the ley line, they gained confidence that Gansey wasn’t going to drop dead at the touch of Blue’s lips again. But it would still take them all a while to get used to Blue and Gansey being _BlueandGansey _post-curse.

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Alright, that’s enough! Let’s keep this PG, people, there are children in the room.”

“Does Opal really count as a _child_?” Blue asked.

“I was talking about Chainsaw. Open mine next.”

Ronan had dreamt Blue and Gansey couple’s t-shirts. In blocky glitter font, Blue’s said, “I KILLED MY BOYFRIEND AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT” and Gansey’s “MY GIRLFRIEND KILLED ME AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.” In the center of both designs was a gory squash with cartoon legs and a knife in its hand.

“You _monster_.” Blue spat at Ronan, which had more to do with the design than the text. “How _dare you_—”

She was cut off by Gansey experimentally poking the lettering. “_SQUASH ONE, SQUASH TWO—”_

“Jesus! Ronan, how do I turn it off?!”

“_You asshole!_” Blue lunged at Ronan. He jumped behind the couch to dodge, and the chase was on.

Adam gasped for air. He doubled over, cackling and wheezing.

Blue pummeled Ronan with a pillow. “Parrish, a little help here?”

“_Hell_ no.” He shook his head, smile aching and eyes watering. “You did this to yourself.”

After one particular god-fucking-forsaken midnight mass, Adam woke to the sound of a knock on his door. _Damn_, he’d been trying to stay up. He pulled himself up and opened it, revealing the most devastatingly handsome version of Ronan he’d ever seen. The lamplight from inside cut across the crisp lines of his suit. His tie loose, but knotted, letting his collar relax past the crook of his neck. Maybe he was just tired, but that looked like the most comfortable spot to be.

“Hey,” he stepped back to let Ronan in.

“Hey.” Ronan took in Adam’s mussed up hair, slouchy sweatshirt, and baggy shorts like he’d never seen anything as remarkable.

Adam was _wantable_.

“How was mass?”

“Same old. Long.” He shirked off his jacket and yanked off his tie. “Figured out what to dream the star-crossed nerds, though.”

“Oh?” Adam took a seat on the mattress.

“_Oh yeah_.” Ronan relaxed back, pulling Adam’s pillow under him as he described his vision for the murder squash/murder boyfriend shirts.

Adam let out a surprised laugh. “Oh god. They’re going to _hate_ it.”

“You sure? It’s a radio classic.”

That earned him another bought of chuckling from Adam.

“That settles it, then. That’s what I’m doing. Thanks, man.”

Adam shook his head in amused disbelief. “You’re impossible.”

Ronan looked up at him with a shit-eating grin. He looked so _right_ stretched out on Adam’s shitty mattress. This was also impossible.

“Move over,” Adam told him. He eased himself down beside Ronan. Their legs tangled together. Adam’s arm wrapped around Ronan’s side. Ronan shifted to give Adam a shred of the pillow, but he burrowed his face in the hollow of Ronan’s neck. Ronan curled into the embrace and stroked Adam’s hair. Adam couldn’t track how long they held each other like that before he drifted off to sleep.

By the time Ronan waved his surrender to Blue, the Murder Squash song had mercifully come to an end. But, unmercifully, it was Adam’s turn.

He peeled the tape off the wrapping paper on Gansey’s box. He folded the paper neatly and set it aside. All eyes were on him. No pressure, or anything.

It was a leather-bound notebook. Much like Gansey’s Glendower journal that he had so much reverence for.

“Glendower’s magicians recorded their findings and observations about the world,” Gansey said hesitantly. _Is this okay?_ “I figured you could at least use it for college-level calculus notes.”

Practical, with a hint of their shared magic and mystery. “Thanks, man.” He bumped his knuckles with Gansey’s. He meant it.

Blue had knitted everyone various winter wear. Gansey tucked his scarf around his neck, a gold-embroidered crown stood out against the deep grey yarn. Adam’s was a soft navy, pillowy and warm. Blue had embroidered a green vine weaving the length of it. The sight of it tugged at him, a phantom echo of Cabeswater’s attempts to communicate. He missed it desperately.

“Mad skill, bro,” Ronan said from across the room. He was busy pulling the bird-sized cap onto Chainsaw’s head. “She looks great.”

“Good! I was a little worried about the measurements.”

Adam nodded, “Seriously, though, this is super cool.”

Blue beamed back at him. “Can I open yours next?”

His gut knotted inside itself. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

Within the newspaper wrappings, was a stapled packet of more paper. On the front page, in Adam’s scribbled handwriting: _Non sum meretricem._ \- I am not a prostitute.

“No way!” She flipped through the pages. Notes of all sorts of Latin grammar and phrases, most way more useful in everyday conversation than the one on the cover. “Adam! This is amazing!”

Relief washed over him. He noticed how she looked at him and the boys when they made their private jokes and observations in a language that’s never been offered at Mountainview High. “If you get the hang of everything in there, you’ll be better than Gansey.”

“I’m not that bad!” Gansey weakly defended.

A quirk of Adam’s eyebrow. A snicker from Ronan.

Blue threw herself at Adam, and into a bear-hug. “Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder.

“No problem.” He squeezed her tightly back.

Gansey opened Adam’s gift next: a tiny thumb drive. His brows furrowed. “What’s on this?”

“Blue filmed me running through fixes for the most common problems you have with the Pig. If you’re gonna go on that cross-country road trip, I’m not gonna be there to save you every time you break down.” They’d used the snap-and-shoot camera and family car from 300 Fox Way and Adam had “fixed” the car over and over all afternoon.

Gansey looked like he might tear up. “We’re going to need this.”

“I know.”

Gansey bumped his fist. “Thank you.”

How foolish it was for Adam to be nervous. He knows his friends, inside and out. He might not have much to give, but for them, it was enough.

It was Ronan’s turn. “Alright, Parrish, what’ve you got?”

Adam tossed the large bag up at him. A pillow.

“I’ve already got a pillow.”

“I know,” Adam said slyly. “That’s for St. Agnes.”

Gansey choked on his hot cocoa.

“I’m getting neck problems from you stealing mine, so that one’s all yours.”

Ronan’s tossed his head back in a laugh.

The oven timer buzzed from the other room.

Ronan gestured for Adam to follow him into the kitchen. The door swung closed behind them.

Once the cookies were saved from being burned, Ronan pulled a small box out of his pocket. “This is for you.”

“The tree’s out there, you know.”

“Fuck that. I’m not doing this in front of them.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. He opened the box. An impossibly intricate golden watch. Before he could remind Ronan of their cost limit, he held it in his hand. He knew immediately it was a dream-thing. It hummed in a way that was not physical, but magical. He could never be close enough to that intangible feeling.

“I already have a watch.”

“I know.”

Of course he knew. Despite his devil-may-care exterior, Ronan was keenly observant. And Adam wore his old leather-strapped watch every day. This struck him differently than the other gifts had. While Gansey and Blue both put thought into their presents, they were things he _needed_. He would need a scarf if he got the opportunity to freeze in a Northeastern winter next year, he would need a journal to take notes. He didn’t need a watch, Ronan just wanted him to have it because it was something he could give.

As he’d been examining it, he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. No music, or changing colors, or flashing lights. “What’s the dream-catch?”

Ronan lightly kicked the counter. Looking down at his feet he said, “It’s dumb.”

His bashfulness took Adam by surprise. “No way, what is it?”

“I don’t know. I just—” He cleared his throat. “In the dream it… it showed the time for wherever _I_ am. Like, in the world. Or whatever.”

Adam felt warm and light. He wrapped an arm around Ronan and cupped the back of his neck with his hand. “That’s not dumb at all, you shithead.” He pulled Ronan into a kiss.

These moments, these memories, he would keep. His friends, their jokes, their intertangled mess of desires and things that go unsaid. They were the best gift he’d ever stumbled upon. And he would tie it all together with a bow, and tuck it away in his chest. The next time he had a rainy day, one full of doubts and insecurity, he could pull it out and put it on display on his shelf. A snow globe-perfect scene of the love they all have for each other.


End file.
